Donald Trump’s agriculture secretary claimed Tuesday Americans are feeling another surge in egg prices because we are in “Easter season.”
A slight rise in egg prices is indeed typical around the spring holiday, but Brooke Rollins’ comments—on Fox Business and in a gaggle with reporters at the White House—comes a full 40 days before Easter Sunday.
“This is always the highest price for eggs,” she said. “We expect [costs] to perhaps inch back up.”
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Rollins’ warning comes two days after Trump, who campaigned last year on lowering grocery bills, reshared an article on Truth Social with a headline that said Americans should “shut up” about egg prices.
Less talk about eggs would likely bode well for Trump. Their cost has hit a record high and is 350% more per dozen compared to March 2024, reports the American Farm Bureau Federation. That is not just hitting Americans’ wallets hard at grocery stores, but also at restaurants that are reportedly raising prices to make up for how much they are spending on eggs alone.
There is only so much a president can do about the cost of eggs, of course, as Democrats tried—and perhaps failed—to alert the public to during 2024 when prices were spiking (but still noticeably lower than they are today). Trump’s tariffs are reportedly adding to the spike in prices, but the No. 1 factor driving egg prices is the presence of the highly pathogenic avian influenza.
That reality did not stop Rollins from placing blame for egg prices on the Biden administration, however. She claims the Biden White House, which has been out of power for nearly three months now, did “nothing” material to combat the issue.
“Combating the Avian Bird Flu is not something that we can do overnight,” she told Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business. “It is a long term effort. But the Biden Administration—this was a major problem that they had two years ago. They talked about it, they wrote some plans about it, and then nothing ever happened. So I think that it’s really important to know.”
The initial surge in egg prices began during Biden’s presidency but peaked in Trump’s first two months in office. Vice President JD Vance went viral in September when he claimed his predecessor, Kamala Harris, was to blame for a dozen eggs costing $4—a remark he made while standing in front of a sign showing their real cost was $2.99.
Even that inflated price of $4 would feel like a bargain for most Americans these days, as the average price for a dozen eggs hit $4.95 in January, according to the Consumer Price Index, with experts warning that figure will only rise further. That is a far cry from the $2.04 cost for a dozen in August 2023 and $1.20 in June 2019.
The CPI’s next update—which will include average egg prices for February—is slated to be released on Wednesday.
Rollins said there is some “good news” on the egg front, however. She claimed prices have actually dropped $1.85 per dozen since they announced a plan to combat the high prices on Feb. 26. That plan includes a $1 billion investment of federal dollars to tighten up biosecurity measures on American farms. Rollins has also suggested Americans wanting to save money should go out and buy their own chickens to raise.
“We’re seeing some relief,” she said Tuesday. “We’ve got a long way to go.”
